The present invention relates to the field of information processing on a network such as the World Wide Web (WWW) and, more specifically, to authoring, distributing, and replaying derivative hypermedia content.
As the World Wide Web (WWW) becomes a more significant information source, there is an increasing need to share and reuse WWW information.
It is herein recognized as being desirable that a WWW user should be enabled to place annotations on WWW documents. There are prior art systems which allow certain kinds of annotations to be placed on WWW documents. The well-known Mosaic browser allows annotation of static text to a WWW document. However, this system has the limitation that the annotation was stored along with the document, and thus required the permission of the document owner to create an annotation. This prevented annotation on arbitrary pages as permission was typically not forthcoming, and it also resulted in security risks for the document owners who did grant permission. It also prevented users from having private annotations on a document.
Other systems, such as the ViewDirector Prism system, from TMS Sequoia, and the HotOffTheWeb system from Insight Development, allow graphical annotation on WWW documents. However, these annotations are static in nature, meaning that there is no timing or navigation information stored with them. Such a system cannot easily be used to author a tour through several pages as is herein recognized to be desirable. Moreover, these systems do not support voice annotation.
A natural mechanism for explanation or exposition is the so-called dynamic annotation, such as is described for image data in U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,313, issued 17-Nov.-1998 in the names of Hou, Tai-Yuan et al., whereof the disclosure is hereby incorporated by reference to the extent it is not inconsistent with the present application. Briefly, that application discloses a multimedia-based reporting system which utilizes a command interpreter to receive inputs from a user and forwards the inputs to an open report handler, a save report handler, a delete current report handler, a mail report handler, a static annotation handler, a dynamic annotation handler including a recording and playback handler, an annotation on annotation handler, an attach media handler and a print report handler. Most relevantly to the current invention, the dynamic annotation handler allows the individual to record/playback annotations from the user input.
Creating an annotation involves recording the mouse gestures, drawings, and voice of the annotation author, along with timing information, so that the annotation can be later replayed in just the way that the author created it. Unlike the Mosaic, Prism, and Sequoia systems mentioned above, users of a dynamic annotation system could see the graphical annotations unfold in time with the comments of the author.